Chef Josh

200 Degrees is all about the coffee, except it’s also all about the food, and our longest serving Chef is Joshua Huntbach:

WHEN DID YOU JOIN 200 DEGREES?

October 2014, I was in on Day 2, I’m not sure who was here on Day 1! I’ve done my training at catering college and worked at other venues before that.

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO BECOME A CHEF?

I wanted to make really nice cakes, I still want to make cakes, and working here allows me to do that. I enjoy what I do and even though this isn’t a classic restaurant kitchen there’s lots of variation and different work to do, plus I finish at 3pm most days which is great after years of working at night.

DESCRIBE THE FOOD AT 200 DEGREES

We specialise in high quality, homely sandwiches and we like to display our food ‘open’ like a farmers market or deli so that people can really see what they’re buying. We do our own take on favourite combinations and then add one-off seasonal specials, deli style recipes and some ideas that really shouldn’t work but seem to pull it off. We make three salads that change with the weather, soups when it’s cold and cakes, lots of cakes.

DESCRIBE A DAY IN THE KITCHEN

I start here at 6am prepping and serving up breakfast for 7am before making the sandwiches and salads for lunch for around 11-ish. We make things from fresh which is time-consuming but important. In the afternoon I get to make cakes, I’m currently working on a ‘Blondie’ which is a white chocolate brownie that’s really, really nice. We also work on new ideas, we’ve got a recipe book of over 100 different sandwiches we’ve served at 200 Degrees and it’s a case of giving some people the ones they want over and over again but also doing the more leftfield stuff we love, those are the ones I see people taking photos of!

FINALLY, TELL US ABOUT COFFEE

I start work at 6am and I drink a lot of coffee, my cup of choice is Americano and I’m not afraid to say I sometimes put sugar in it.